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People generally only frequent a small number of sites, this takes up one of those spots. Add 10 more and you've more than exhausted that number for most people

by ericd 16y ago

People generally only frequent a small number of sites, this takes up one of those spots. Add 10 more and you've more than exhausted that number for most people.

jerf 16y ago
When engaging in cultural protectionism, I think you should consider the opposite side of what you are telling people to do. In this case, sites cooler than HN-classic should not be made, and if they are made, people shouldn't visit them, because that might hurt HN-classic. Is that really a sensible position to be taking? If HN can only survive by people purposely not visiting better sites, HN doesn't deserve to survive. This entire line of logic is silly when you actually translate it into concrete recommendations you are making to real people.
- ericd 16y ago
  I'm not saying anything about coolness or quality of sites, or that some sites should exist and others shouldn't, I'm not sure where you're getting that in my comment. I'm just saying that fragmentation of a community can be a very real problem, as with more subcommunities, people stop visiting the main one, and the main becomes less diverse. Your original comment trivializes that, because "you can visit more than one site". If the designers of Hacker News want a community that's segmented, let them do it. I don't think it's right to use the HN name to do it for them, though.
  - jerf 16y ago
    "I'm not sure where you're getting that in my comment" I explained it to you. If you want non-fragmentation, that is exactly equivalent to telling people that they should stay where they are. "Not fragmenting the community" can't happen in the abstract, it can only happen in the concrete choices of others. Therefore, when you advocate against the fragmentation of a community even as it naturally tends to it by the natural result of people doing what they desire, you are advocating that other people should not follow their desires to go somewhere else. They're not even two sides of the same coin, they're just the same thing. But it sure sounds a lot less friendly, which in my opinion is the more accurate way of looking at it.
    - ericd 16y ago
      No, they aren't equivalent, and I'm not advocating those things. I said it could be a problem for HN. There's a difference between fragmentation of a community because of site structure and people going elsewhere because they like it better. In building a community, the choices of the designer of the community's home influences the structure of the resulting community without needing to tell them explicitly to do one thing or another. My original point was not to say I agreed or disagreed with the post's plea to stop fragmentation, though it seems that you took it that way. I was saying that your original point of adding more options being inconsequential because there are lots of sites out there was an oversimplified trivialization of the problem. Too many options on a site is frequently a real, important design problem, and you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand. Having HN1, HN2, HN3, etc is different from having HN, Digg, Reddit, etc. I'm done. I didn't mean to get into an argument, I was just pointing out something you didn't seem to be considering when you made your comment. HN's existence as a single entity might be an intentional design decision, and it's not necessarily a bad one.

by ericd 16y ago

People generally only frequent a small number of sites, this takes up one of those spots. Add 10 more and you've more than exhausted that number for most people.

jerf 16y ago

When engaging in cultural protectionism, I think you should consider the opposite side of what you are telling people to do. In this case, sites cooler than HN-classic should not be made, and if they are made, people shouldn't visit them, because that might hurt HN-classic. Is that really a sensible position to be taking? If HN can only survive by people purposely not visiting better sites, HN doesn't deserve to survive. This entire line of logic is silly when you actually translate it into concrete recommendations you are making to real people.

ericd 16y ago
I'm not saying anything about coolness or quality of sites, or that some sites should exist and others shouldn't, I'm not sure where you're getting that in my comment. I'm just saying that fragmentation of a community can be a very real problem, as with more subcommunities, people stop visiting the main one, and the main becomes less diverse. Your original comment trivializes that, because "you can visit more than one site". If the designers of Hacker News want a community that's segmented, let them do it. I don't think it's right to use the HN name to do it for them, though.
- jerf 16y ago
  "I'm not sure where you're getting that in my comment" I explained it to you. If you want non-fragmentation, that is exactly equivalent to telling people that they should stay where they are. "Not fragmenting the community" can't happen in the abstract, it can only happen in the concrete choices of others. Therefore, when you advocate against the fragmentation of a community even as it naturally tends to it by the natural result of people doing what they desire, you are advocating that other people should not follow their desires to go somewhere else. They're not even two sides of the same coin, they're just the same thing. But it sure sounds a lot less friendly, which in my opinion is the more accurate way of looking at it.
  - ericd 16y ago
    No, they aren't equivalent, and I'm not advocating those things. I said it could be a problem for HN. There's a difference between fragmentation of a community because of site structure and people going elsewhere because they like it better. In building a community, the choices of the designer of the community's home influences the structure of the resulting community without needing to tell them explicitly to do one thing or another. My original point was not to say I agreed or disagreed with the post's plea to stop fragmentation, though it seems that you took it that way. I was saying that your original point of adding more options being inconsequential because there are lots of sites out there was an oversimplified trivialization of the problem. Too many options on a site is frequently a real, important design problem, and you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand. Having HN1, HN2, HN3, etc is different from having HN, Digg, Reddit, etc. I'm done. I didn't mean to get into an argument, I was just pointing out something you didn't seem to be considering when you made your comment. HN's existence as a single entity might be an intentional design decision, and it's not necessarily a bad one.